


What Kara Could Not

by Starb_uck



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, Imprisonment, Interrogation, Restraints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-19 11:17:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16533578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starb_uck/pseuds/Starb_uck
Summary: "Any Cylons get thrown out of airlocks, Madame President. Do you think I don't know that?"AU in which Roslin's plan failed and Cain's succeeded, creating a nightmare power share situation.Or, "We're going the wrong way!!"





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Lies We Tell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/184237) by [trancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trancer/pseuds/trancer). 



> Title and inspiration partly from the above fantastic work.

The cuffs stayed on, all the time. Cylon cuffs, of course, because of what they thought she was. Supposedly to counteract the threat she presented, her inhuman Cylon strength. Also to remind her of her place, and to discourage her from any stupid attempts at escape. She also thought the constant restraint was intended to punish her for trying to lead the fleet into a trap, for hiding her Cylon identity for all these long months. 

She wasn't a Cylon. It was the one thought clear in her mind, and she clung to it, through all the tortures and indignities they put her through. She wasn't a Cylon, and this nightmare would end. Some day. 

***

Her mouth was dry, parched. She was given just enough water to keep her alive, nowhere near enough to assuage the constant thirst that raged at her, threatening to drive her mad. Her dreams were all of water. She dreamt often of the great waterfalls in the mountains outside Delphi; she went swimming in the icy pools under the falls, she laughed as she floated in the crashing spray. She plunged deep below the surface and filled her mouth, filled her whole head with great gasping gulps of the life-giving fluid. The dreams only served to add to her torment whenever she woke again to find herself still in her cell, in the ever present harsh overhead lights. 

She whimpered, worked her gummy mouth to try and work up a small measure of saliva to moisten it. She shifted, rolled her head to lie on the other shoulder. It was one of the few movements available to her. The cuffs were designed to completely immobilize Cylon prisoners and were unbreakable. She'd tried, even though she knew it was pointless. They were connected by pliant steel cords to the control point bolted to the floor of the cell, and her bondage could be tightened or loosened as required by adjusting these cords. Currently they were tight, because she wasn't cooperating. Her feet were drawn up tight towards her ass and held there, the cord from the ankle cuffs linking through the restraints on her wrists before reaching the control point. Any movement from her arms or legs resulted in immediate pain as the cruel steel cuffs bit into her wrists and ankles. Deep red weals on her limbs caused by the unrelenting cuffs meant that the slightest movement was agony. She couldn't even struggle any more; it just hurt too much. All she could do was lie still in her chains, and wait for the return of her interrogators. Every so often, her constricted body gave an involuntary jerk, trying to ease the pain of abused muscles, of her body forced to remain in the unnatural position. She moaned at the resulting pain each time this occurred, and tried to will her own body into stillness. She thought she'd give up anything, anything at all right now to have the chains removed, even if it were only for a short while. She gave up the attempt to moisten the arid desert of her mouth and simply lay motionless on the cold steel floor of her cell. Unbidden, a tear slipped out to run down her cheek. She tried to catch it with her tongue but couldn't reach it in time. She bemoaned the stupid waste of her body's fluids. Helpless, Starbuck continued to cry silently at the hopelessness of her situation, and her mind drifted, taking her back how to this horror had begun. 

***

Roslin stared at the rebellious pilot. "You know, Captain", she said musingly, fingering a lock of her long red curly hair, "things would be a lot easier for you if you just stopped fighting us all the time". 

Starbuck just stared at her. This had been going on for such a very long time. She kept telling herself that it couldn't go on much longer, that something would happen to save her from this awful situation. Something, anything. It hadn't happened yet, but still she hoped. 

"Just admit that you're a Cylon, and this can stop". 

"Not.. a Cylon.." The pilot gasped the rebuttal as she shifted in her chains. 

"Still not? That's a shame, Captain. A shame for you. Good Cylons who admit what they are get given food, water. Bad Cylons get nothing". She rose from her chair and stood looking down at her prisoner, a mock regretful expression on her face. 

"Any Cylons get thrown out of airlocks, Madame President. Do you think I don't know that?" 

Her voice was hoarse. It had been a long time since she'd spoken. The President considered her thoughtfully. 

"Is that why you refuse to admit what you are, Captain? Because you think I'll have you thrown out of an airlock like so much garbage if you do?" 

"Won't you?" 

"Perhaps. It depends. On what you tell me, on how much use you can be. Of course, if you continue to refuse to admit the truth we both know, you'll eventually come to have no use to me whatsoever. I can't continue to waste my time on you indefinitely, you know".

She'd certainly spent a fair amount of time here lately. In the brig, in Starbuck's own personal cell. She didn't know how long she'd been here, but it had been a long time. She'd tried marking the walls in the beginning, tried to keep a record of the endless, pain-filled days as they passed, but there didn't seem much point now. Anyway, they'd discovered the stub of pencil she'd found in the pocket of her pants, and had taken it away from her. And hogtied her face down on the floor for hours, on the President's orders, as punishment for her audacity. 

Adama couldn't help her now. The old man was dead, murdered by Fisk's marines in the aftermath of the attack on the resurrection ship. She'd been supposed to take Cain out herself, in a return engagement, but she hadn't had the guts. She wondered sometimes if things would be different for her now if she had done so. Cain and Roslin ran both ships now, ran the entire fleet, with a collective iron fist. Their word was law, and things were very different now. Executions, brutal discipline, imprisonment without trial were commonplace, the rule now rather than the exception. 

Starbuck had kept her head down, stayed below the parapet for long weeks, and managed to stay unnoticed as the fleet struggled to come to terms with the new power structure. Until she pulled off her stunt with her exploding Viper, her disappearance and subsequent reappearance, months later, which had thrust her right into the firing line. Gods, she hadn't known she was going anywhere, didn't know she'd been gone for so long. All she knew was that she'd found Earth, and she was burning to tell them all about it, to persuade them all to change course and to follow her. But nobody would listen. 

She had been seized at gunpoint by marines, even as she clambered stiffly from her Viper, an ecstatic grin on her face. She had been forced to kneel on the hangar deck floor, hands raised above her head. Cain and Roslin stood tall above her. They wouldn't listen to what she was trying to say, kept telling her to shut up. Kara didn't know how to shut up, and she'd never been told to do so in her life. She kept talking excitedly, still refusing to believe that this was anything other than a mild misunderstanding, one which would be sorted out in very short order. They'd listen to her, of course they would. They had to. 

"I've told you twice now to be quiet, Captain". The words were soft, and Starbuck missed the menace in them entirely. 

"Yes, but.." 

Roslin sighed then, quietly. She motioned to the marines standing around the kneeling pilot. Mathias stepped forward and clouted Starbuck in the back of the head with her rifle butt. Starbuck gasped in sudden pain, jerking forward, finally stuttering into silence as her hands moved to cradle her aching head. 

"Don't remember telling you to lower your hands, Captain". Cain's voice was quiet, yet rang through the silent bay like a bell tolling in a deserted church. 

Everybody was watching. Everybody was looking. Nobody was helping. To be fair, nobody *could help. It was impossible to go up against even one of these two powerful women, and now that they were working together, well, forget it. Starbuck swallowed and forced her hands upwards again, above her head. Cain began circling her, arms crossed in front of her, slim and attractive in her well-cut uniform. 

"I don't want to hear anything more from you, Captain, not until I ask for it. I will ask the questions, and you will answer them. Honestly, truthfully, and without embellishment or prevarication. You will not speak until you are spoken to. You will not lie to me, or refuse to answer. If you do so, you will regret it. Do you understand?"

Starbuck stared at her. Yes, she knew things were different now. They'd changed so dramatically since the executions on the bridge, but this.. shit, it looked as if the two power players of this brave new world of theirs had taken things to a whole new level of crazy. She swallowed, still bubbling over with her news but managing somehow to contain her enthusiasm. Her head hurt where they'd hit her. Why had they hit her? Adama wouldn't have ordered her hit.. The old man would've listened to her, at least, even if he didn't agree with her at the end of it. She felt a wave of sadness and grief and quickly forced away all thoughts of her old Commander. They hurt too much. She realised that Cain was still waiting for an answer. 

"Uhh, yeah... I guess so, sir". She couldn't help the hurt and the injustice she felt seeping into her tone. 

"You 'guess so'. Well, I suppose that'll have to do for now, Thrace. We can always discuss at a later date the issue of your lacklustre and decidedly substandard approach to self-discipline, and lack of respect for senior officers and public officials". She sneered at the pilot, who stared back, visibly confused.

She stared from Cain to Roslin, still finding it hard to accept that they were working together. Hell, they hated each other, that had been obvious from the very start. And yet... with Adama dead and gone, with Cain's plan succeeding beyond her wildest expectations and Roslin's having failed miserably, somehow they'd formed this dreadful alliance. Rumours abounded of the things that went on, now. People disappeared with alarming regularity, and were never seen again. People had learned not to question these disappearances, as doing so had been proved likely to incite vanishing acts of their own. People kept their heads down, these days, got on with their work quietly, tried to avoid notice. There wasn't much laughter in the fleet anymore, but productivity had increased immeasurably. 

Cain tapped the butt of her service weapon, holstered at her side, as she came to a halt in front of the kneeling woman. 

"Two months you've been gone, Captain. Two months. Suppose you tell me, first of all, what happened to you during those two long months?"

Starbuck sighed. She'd told them already that she didn't remember, that from her perspective it was as though she'd been gone for no more than a few hours. No, she didn't understand it any more than they did. She told them so again. 

"Hmmm". Cain's only response. 

"And you went to Earth, you say? And you can lead us there? Sounds too good to be true, Thrace. Sounds like a Cylon trap to me. Are you a Cylon, Captain?"

*What the frak??

"Huh? No!! No, of course I'm not!" She laughed shakily, the sound mildly hysterical. Her arms were starting to ache now from holding them high above her. She felt desperation seep through her, and carried on speaking, telling them how they had to follow the signal, had to change course *now before she lost it, how she could feel it starting to fade even now.. She babbled desperately, trying to get through to these crazy ladies, trying to make them understand the importance of what she was trying to reveal. 

Cain stared at her, lip curling in disgust. She caught Mathias' eye briefly and nodded once. Kara caught the motion and realised what she had done even as the rifle butt landed solidly in between her shoulder blades, forcing her forwards violently. She grunted with the pain of it as she fell forward onto her hands and knees. 

"Believe I told you not to speak until you were asked a direct question, Captain". Cain's voice was very cold. 

She pushed herself painfully back upright onto her knees and looked up at the Admiral with pain-filled eyes. Opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. She was learning, Roslin thought with secret joy. Beginning to learn the way things worked around here, now. 

"Your arms, Captain". She spoke, her voice calm, measured. Starbuck shifted her gaze to her, shocked. 

"Madame President?? Please, you have to listen to me! You have to.." 

Laura tsked with mock disapproval. Not learning so fast after all. She nodded at the marine and the rifle butt connected once more, in the same place. Harder. The pilot cried out this time as she fell once again to land on her hands. She stayed down this time, moaning with the pain in her back. 

"Get up, Thrace". The Admiral's order was quiet, but laced with steel. Starbuck knew she could no more disobey that voice than persuade its owner to listen to her. She pushed herself once again upright, her movements laboured and painful. Remembered her arms and raised them quickly above her head. She stayed silent through a sheer effort of will, even though it took all she had not to let the words flow from her in a great torrent, to try and persuade these implacable demons above her of their importance through their sheer weight. She managed it because she really didn't want to be hit again. Her body ached horribly. 

"I think you're a Cylon, Thrace. I think you've come back to lead us into a trap. Haven't you?" Cain began to circle her again, slow, measured steps ringing on the steel floor. 

"No, sir". Starbuck whispered the words. A cold fear was beginning to seep in, squeezing out the elation she'd felt since she'd returned. 

"No? Then how do you explain your miraculous return from the dead? Captain Adama saw your ship explode. Saw it with his very eyes, Thrace. And his onboard camera confirms it".

Starbuck swallowed. "I can't", she said softly. "I don't remember what happened". 

"Well, how convenient. You don't remember. And what about your ship? Again, we all saw it explode. There was nothing left, Captain. And now you come sailing back in after two, whole, months, in what's supposedly the selfsame ship that exploded, and tell us to change course? How do you think that sounds to me, Thrace?"

Starbuck stared at the Admiral. She couldn't explain it, any of it. But she just knew that it was true. She stayed silent. 

What's the matter? "Cat got your tongue, skinjob?"

Cain turned to face the President. A brief moment of unspoken communication, before the Admiral looked once again at the marines. 

"Alright. Restrain her securely and take her to the brig. Leave the cuffs on once you jug her. I'll be along shortly to continue this.. *discussion

***

To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things worsen for Starbuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one isn't going to be light reading, it seems. Tag updates will probably apply from the next chapter. But for what it's worth, however dark it gets, I always plan on getting the characters out in one piece, however long it takes!
> 
> So please do bear with me if my story is your cup of tea, and I most cordially and politely invite you to read the tags and look elsewhere, if it is not :)

Apparently, the first order of the day was to beat the holy shit out of her. She'd been dragged to the brig, fighting against the marines every single step of the way, forced to the ground and cuffed securely. She'd been tossed unceremoniously inside a holding cell, so hard that she staggered and fell to her knees in the middle of the room. She heard laughter as the marines backed out of the room, rifles at the ready. "Cylon slut", she heard, amongst other things, before the door clanked shut. She looked round at her surroundings, still more angry than afraid. One brig was much like another. Cot, metal toilet. She grunted in frustration. Still going the wrong way, and still nobody would listen! Her hair was in her eyes. She tried to push it away automatically and howled in sheer frustration when a sudden sharp pain in her wrists made her remember the cuffs. She flung herself onto the cot and lay face down, drumming her heels into the wall behind her in furious rejection of the entire frakked up chain of events that had led her to this place. 

***

She had no way of knowing how long it had been, but looked up suddenly from the cot as she heard commotion outside, voices. She sat upright as the cell door opened. Cain entered, marines close behind. The Admiral looked pissed. Really pissed. 

"Get up". She gave the order without prevarication. Starbuck thought about disobeying, then thought better of it. Maybe there was still a chance she could get this woman to frakking listen to her.. She pushed her legs off the side of the low cot and rose to her feet, swaying to catch her balance. It'd been so long since she'd been cuffed for any length of time- she'd forgotten how frakked up it made your balance. She set her jaw into a determined expression and looked the Admiral full in the face.

What she saw there made her knees go weak. Cain was looking at her as if she wasn't even human. Her eyes were flat and blank, as cold and black as those of a shark. The protests Starbuck had been planning to utter died upon her lips. This was the Admiral Cain she'd heard about, the one you really, *really didn't want to frak with. She swallowed. Tried to moderate her voice, tried to sound reasonable rather than demanding. 

"Uh, sir? Look, I don't know what this is, but I'm sure we can work it out. Can't we? I mean.." She broke off abruptly as Cain twitched, whether in response to her words or to something else, Starbuck didn't know. She understood Cain's next words loud and clear, however. 

"Shut, the frak, up". Spoken in low measured tones that nonetheless almost paralysed the pilot with fear. 

Cain spoke to the surrounding marines without looking at them, keeping her eyes on the bound pilot as she spoke. 

"Two things, soldiers. One, when I said take this thing to the brig, I assumed you'd realise I meant the extreme holding cells, reserved for dangerous prisoners. I mean, how much more dangerous can you get than a Cylon spy?" She laughed, entirely without humour. "And secondly, on a similar note, why is it in human restraints? I stupidly assumed you'd have realised its potential danger, and chosen the appropriate restraints accordingly". 

Mathias stepped forward, Sergeant of the group. 

"Sir. Sorry sir. We didn't know if it was definite yet, or if we were still awaiting confirmation that it was a Cylon, sir". She stopped. She wouldn't meet Starbuck's eyes, although the pilot tried to make her. *It... The word made her cold, through and through. 

"I see". Cain's voice was very quiet. "Well, I suppose I understand that it's difficult, when it's someone you know well who you've got to control and discipline, Sergeant. But you really do have to think through the potential consequences of your actions, you know. If you weren't sure, then that's all the more reason to have taken appropriate precautions! She could have snapped those cuffs, and your scrawny neck, at any moment, if she'd had a mind to. Do you understand me?"

*It wasn't true! Starbuck screamed the words in her mind, but had the good sense not to speak aloud. Mathias met Cain's gaze at last and nodded. 

"Yes sir. Sorry sir".

"Alright. No harm done. Now, one of you, get the Cylon cuffs from the equipment locker. The rest of you, be ready. We don't know yet what it can do, but I intend to be ready when I find out".

Oh for frak's sake, this was getting ridiculous. 

"I, am not, a frakking, *Cylon!" Starbuck yelled at the top of her voice. 

Cain turned and backhanded her savagely across the face in one easy movement. The force behind the blow sent Starbuck staggering backwards until her knees met the edge of the cot. She jackknifed over it, hitting her head hard on the wall. She cried out with the pain of it. 

*Just a minute to catch her breath.. that's all she needed. Then she'd be able to get up, talk things through with the Admiral, get this mess sorted out. The Admiral liked her, surely she'd listen to her sooner or later? It was going to be okay, and she was going to get up any minute now, yes she was, just as soon as her head stopped pounding, and the bright flashy lights went..

She felt her ankles seized with a firm grip. Before she could offer any kind of resistance, she was hauled unceremoniously off the cot and onto the floor. Only instinct helped her turn her body to try to prevent the back of her head hitting the floor as she fell. Even so, although her shoulders took most of the force of her fall, the residual impact meant her head impacted the floor again. She moaned. The stars were back, and they were brighter this time. She opened her eyes and could see nothing but stars floating in blackness. And that was alright. 

Angry voices above her. That was Cain. Was she mad at her? Kara shivered. But no. The Admiral was yelling at somebody else. Starbuck wondered idly what the nameless person's crime had been. She heard random phrases that swirled around her spinning head. Phrases like "Could've killed her, you useless frakwit!" and "What the frak were you thinking, letting her hit her head like that?" and "She's got information I want, and if she dies because of what you did, then I promise you, I'll..." They didn't make much sense, and she tried to stop listening. 

A rough hand seized her jaw, pushed her head back. "Open your eyes". She heard the command from a long way away, and tried to obey it. She wasn't sure if she'd succeeded or not, but she guessed that the lack of subsequent punishment meant that she probably had. 

Cain grunted in satisfaction and relief as she saw the prisoner beginning to come round from her daze, her eyes starting to focus normally again. Just stunned. That was alright. For a few moments there she'd felt genuine panic that it was a fractured skull, maybe bleeding in the brain.. Gods only knew how she'd have explained that one to Roslin.. She was supposed to be the expert interrogator, after all! To lose the prisoner through sheer carelessness in the very first session! She pushed the horrible thought aside and called impatiently for water, a cloth. They were okay to proceed, she thought, but better stay away from the head for a few days. Pity, but that was the way it was. She applied the wet cloth to the prisoner's temples. 

"Wake up, Thrace".

Starbuck heard the insistent voice in her dream. She was floating in a nice, deep pool. Had she but known it, this was the first of many, many dreams of water that would plague her over the time ahead. The voice was calling her, wouldn't let her be. She didn't want to listen to the voice, she wanted to stay here, in this nice floaty place. But the voice wouldn't let her. It called again, more insistently this time, and now she felt pain, sharp insistent pinches on her upper arms. She moaned, tried to twist away from the pressure. 

"Wake the frak up, right now, Starbuck, or I'll.."

The wet cloth was scrubbing cruelly at her face now, mashing her features. Her lip throbbed where Cain had hit her, and the cloth was making it worse. She tried to twist away from it but it followed her, rubbing harder. 

The voice wouldn't be denied. She moaned again, opened her eyes to see bright lights above her. She was on the floor... Admiral Cain kneeling over her.. Her memory came flooding back in a rush. Oh no.. Not this, not here.. She twisted her head from side to side in denial, closed her eyes. That sharp pain came again, harsher this time. She opened her eyes again, screamed. Cain was pinching her upper arms viciously. She looked down in disbelief at the site of the pain. Saw several places where she'd drawn blood through the force of her grip. *Gods.. She forced her eyes open wide and stared at the Admiral, gasping in pain and the sudden shock at the force of her reawakening. 

"You're back with us, at last. Good. I was beginning to think I was going to have to get the pressure hose out". Cain was staring down at her stonily, still gripping her upper arms. Kara just hoped she wasn't going to start up with the pinching again. Her arms throbbed horribly, keeping the beat with the pounding in her skull. 

"Up". The Admiral rose to her feet and bent to seize Starbuck by her arm. She yanked, and the pilot cried out anew at the sudden pain in her wrists. She hurried to obey, to ease the sharp agony, scrambling to her knees and then to her feet. Cain steered her to the edge of the cot. "Sit". Starbuck sat. *Gods, what came next? *Beg? *Roll over? She couldn't quite comprehend what was happening to her, it all seemed hazy, dreamlike, and it was all happening too quickly. 

The Admiral stood over her, hands clasped behind her back. She looked like a goddess, or a demon.. Starbuck felt extremely vulnerable, sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands clasped behind her. She shivered, wondering what would happen to her next. She didn't like feeling like this, helpless. How long would it take until this mess was straightened out?

Both heads turned at the noise of the door opening. The young marine entered, clutching a jumble of steel cord and cruel-looking cuffs. Kara swallowed. She knew what those were. Cylon cuffs... for her. Her mind cried out in denial, although she managed somehow not to make a sound. 

"Sorry, sir", the young man panted. He'd obviously run most of the way back from the storage locker. "They were right at the bottom, and some fr… some joker had used them to tie up one of the first aid dummies, so I had t.."

Cain froze him with a look. "Bring them here". Gulping, the boy trotted forwards and laid the cuff arrangement at the Admiral's feet. Starbuck couldn't take her eyes off them. She'd seen them before, of course, all Battlestars had them, just in case, but somehow it was very different when she knew that they were intended for use on her. They looked.. unrelenting. Cruel. She swallowed. Found all of a sudden she couldn't meet Cain's eyes. 

"Yes, these are more like it. These will keep your nasty little Cylon body in its place, I think. But first.."

Starbuck broke in, suddenly desperate. 

"But you can't! You can't put those on me, Admiral! I'm not a Cylon, and I haven't done anything wrong! Please!"

Cain grabbed her by the hair and forced her in one swift movement off the cot and down onto her knees. She twisted on the hair she held, forcing Starbuck's head up and back until she cried out with the pain of it. 

"Shut, up. I've already told you I don't want to hear your nasty, whiny little Cylon voice unless I've asked you a question".

"But.. but.. Mathias!" She was frantic now, panic really beginning to set in. She called out to the marines. "Dexter! Thomson! Come on, guys, you *know me! You know I'm not a Cylon! Please! You can't let her do this to me! Please, help me!"

She cried out again as she was roughly thrust to the floor. Landed on her belly, unable to use her arms to defend herself. A boot caught her in the stomach and she crawfished with the sudden grinding pain in her midsection. Her voice was cut off as her breath left her in a great whoosh. Not again.. No more.. The boot again, this time in her upper thigh. Holy frak, that hurt... She whimpered, wriggling on the floor of the cell. Cain continued to kick her, relentlessly, methodically, carefully choosing the site of each blow, careful to pick places which would inflict maximum pain with minimum lasting damage. She seemed particularly keen on her ass, landing blow after blow onto that soft and tempting target. Starbuck groaned at the pain of it. Her ass felt numb and yet every kick that landed there seemed to reverberate throughout her body, pain shooting outwards in great spikes. She tried to wriggle to her feet, up, away from the punishing boot. Cain allowed her to get as far as a low crouch, before seizing her by the arms and pushing her face down onto the cot. She pinned her there, a knee on the back of her neck, while cruel fingers roamed over her helpless tormented ass. She squirmed, twisted, but she was held fast. The fingers pinched and she cried out again. 

"Nice. Always thought you had a nice ass, Captain. Been thinking for a while I'd like to try it out. I never thought it would happen quite like this, you know, but beggars can't be choosers, can they?"


End file.
